Denial

The most well-known defense mechanism is denial. Everyone is probably familiar with the old cliché for addicts: the first step is admitting you have a problem. Within denial, we refuse to admit (even to ourselves) that something negative or anxiety-provoking is really happening. If the problem doesn’t exist, then it doesn’t produce any difficulty. Denial may be the most ubiquitous defense mechanism in the minds of Miami Metro. Every person working there has been trained to notice clues pointing to someone’s guilt, to follow paths leading to criminals. But in spite of their highly skilled training, almost none of them pick up on the fact that they are working alongside one of the most successful serial killers in the history of our nation—and that they are friends with him.

Denial can be seen more specifically in three people in Dexter’s world. The most obvious example is Lieutenant Maria LaGuerta. LaGuerta has a lot to deal with in her precinct, including a boss who hates her, the constant sexual escapades of the cops and detectives who work under her, and a feeling of general loneliness and separation from everyone else in her life. The only person she always maintained a connection with was her past partner, Sergeant James Doakes. Unfortunately for LaGuerta, in season two Dexter framed Doakes to appear as the Bay Harbor Butcher. Although Doakes was actually innocent, all the evidence pointed to his guilt, a fact LaGuerta simply couldn’t handle. She actually admitted to others that she was in denial about him being a mass murderer, because if her partner and friend was a killer, her entire concept of interpersonal trust would be shattered. Denial was probably the psychologically healthiest way for LaGuerta to deal with this situation, after Doakes died. She had to continue on, keep fighting criminals, keep leading her precinct; denial helped her do all of those things.

So in LaGuerta’s case, denial was useful. However, denial is used by others within Miami Metro and their families and friends in ways which are much more destructive. Rita was a sweet woman who just wanted to find a man to love and respect her. However, she was in constant denial about the men in her life. She didn’t even want to admit that she had a teenage marriage for a few short months. Her second husband, Paul, was an abusive heroin addict, a fact she had trouble admitting until after she found a replacement (Dexter). And although she didn’t know it, Dexter was certainly not the man she thought he was. Rita’s unconscious mind actually worked very hard to convince itself that everything about Dexter was comforting, safe, and good. Dexter knows the truth, however, and wondered if Rita was secretly attracted to evil men. In “Circle of Friends” (1-7), we saw her denial continue as Dexter asked about Paul:

DEXTER: When’d you first notice it? This . . . darkness inside the guy you fell for?

RITA: I always knew it was there . . . I guess I just didn’t think I deserved better. ’Til I met you.

DEXTER: I have a dark side, too.

RITA: (laughs)

DEXTER: What? I do.

RITA: Somehow I doubt that. You have a good heart, Dexter. You’re not like Paul. You don’t hurt people.

DEXTER: (pause) Innocent people. I don’t hurt innocent people.

Rita just smiled, and laughed again. She wouldn’t admit anything negative about him (at least not at this point in their relationship). In order to feel psychologically safe, Rita had to live in denial about anything scary in her partner.

A final example of denial can be seen in Dexter’s sister Debra. Deb has spent her life trying to live up to her father’s image as a legendary police detective, and therefore is on a quest to seek out killers. Her instincts are typically very good; she finds leads in cases time and time again. However, her biggest mistake came when she fell in love with the Ice Truck Killer (Brian, Dexter’s brother). When Brian asked Deb why she never suspected him, Deb fell apart. Something about Brian drew her toward him; perhaps her unconscious mind simply wouldn’t allow her to realize that she finally had found the killer she was always seeking—and that she had fallen for him.

Sublimation

A lesser-known defense mechanism is sublimation. To understand sublimation, think about a man who has too much aggression. Ideally, this man would beat people up wherever he goes. But society tells him that aggression is not an acceptable impulse. So, sublimation is when the unconscious mind finds a creative way of allowing socially unacceptable tendencies to come out in ways that are actually praised by others. This man could become a professional boxer or football player, making millions of dollars, probably getting to bed hot chicks, and certainly allowing his aggression to run free and play.

One fascinating (and extreme) example of sublimation can be seen in Dexter’s season four adversary, the Trinity killer. For years, Trinity appeared to be a wonderful philanthropist as he traveled from city to city building homes for the homeless. His “Four Walls, One Heart” campaign brought him social praise (and the opportunity to kill people in all sorts of exciting new locations). But more directly, Trinity’s projects provided concrete for him to sink kidnapped ten-year-old boys (still alive) within the foundation of the homes. (Indeed, his campaign title can be taken literally, as each of his homes has a human heart lying beneath it.) Clearly this urge is not socially acceptable, so he sublimated it: he found a way to satisfy his predilection for child murder in a way that would appear—to the outside world—praiseworthy.

Intellectualization

When reality is simply too emotionally terrible to handle, one way to deal with it is to use intellectualization. This defense mechanism strips away any emotionality and leaves the conscious mind only the logical, pragmatic, and objective view.

A profound example of intellectualization can be seen in Special Agent Frank Lundy, from the FBI. Lundy’s entire career was built on finding and stopping serial killers. Part of this job was to witness repeated scenes of horror, and try to adopt the perspective of the murderers he sought. For many people, the sheer knowledge that dozens of serial killers are running around would be overwhelming. But Lundy remained perfectly calm and collected—he was logical, thoughtful, objective. This dispassionate mindset carried over into his relationship with Deb; Lundy told her that they weren’t right for each other because he was twice her age. Again, he didn’t allow his emotions to take over. He used logic to protect his heart just as he used it to protect his mind from the repeated analysis of horrific murders.

Lundy’s use of intellectualization is another example of how defense mechanisms can often help us; though it almost got in the way of his relationship with Debra, it clearly worked well for him and propelled him to the top of his field. Lundy’s ability to track killers may have eventually led to his death, but while he was alive, he was psychologically healthy, at least partially due to his use of defense mechanisms.

Identification

Perhaps one of the most obvious defense mechanisms used in Dexter’s world is identification. When someone isn’t sure of himself or herself, when that person has low self-esteem or needs the attention of others, he or she might “identify” with a powerful, successful other. Identification is when we model our own behavior on that other person’s, to gain approval or success for ourselves. The cliché example of an object of identification is a parent; we emulate them and hope for an affirmation of our own worth.

For Deb, identification is the defense mechanism that has shaped the majority of her life. When Deb and Dexter were growing up, their father Harry had to spend a lot of time training Dexter and teaching him the code. This was essential to keep Dexter from allowing the Dark Passenger to take over, but Deb saw it as father-son bonding, which left her out. Deb desperately wanted attention, love, and acceptance from Harry. When Harry and Dexter began regularly “hunting,” Deb actually broke into Harry’s gun cabinet and learned how to shoot. She got pretty good at it, but when Harry found out, he only yelled and punished her. In “Circle of Friends,” Deb admitted that she became a cop because she’d wanted more attention from their father, and that she’d been jealous of his time with Dexter. She also noted that the only time Harry had ever spent with her alone was tucking her in at night. That was when he would tell her stories about his cases at work, so she was drawn to homicide as a way of getting closer him.

Unfortunately, Deb’s identification with her father only works as long as she views him as a distant hero. This became a problem when Deb became sexually involved with Anton, her confidential informant on a case. When Deb talked to Dexter about whether Harry would have approved of Anton, Dexter let her know that Harry had more in common with her than she thought. After investigating her father’s old files, she learned that her sainted father Harry had his own demons; he had a series of affairs with confidential informants (including, mostcontroversially, Dexter’s biological mother). When Deb understood this, her view of Harry changed, leaving her without a model to cling to. Identification couldn’t work as a defense mechanism if it caused her trauma and anxiety instead of shielding her from it.

Deb does identify with another key person: Agent Lundy. Lundy was older, and she even saw him as a father figure at first, getting annoyed when he commented on her potty mouth. Fairly quickly, however, Deb fell in love with Lundy. She even called him a “god” when he questioned his own work on their case; clearly she looked up to him as someone who could guide her, give her attention, and love her in more than one way. All her hopes were pinned on him, which is why she was so upset when he left Miami after the Bay Harbor Butcher case ended, and why she was so broken by his death. Deb identifies with father figures because she needs someone to please. This general tendency occasionally leads her down the wrong path or makes her question her own judgment, but in general having the goal of being a successful detective and surrounding herself with like-minded others has had a positive effect.

Identifying with a parent to get positive attention is also seen in Christine, the daughter of the Trinity killer. Christine was never part of Trinity’s “regular” family; she had always been left out, a secret. She explicitly told Trinity that she tried to get his acceptance by emulating him, and she even murdered Lundy and shot Deb to get this approval. When Trinity rejected her even after this supreme effort, Christine’s mind simply couldn’t handle it, and she committed suicide. In Christine’s case this defense mechanism backfired, leading only to tragedy.

The Dark Defender: Dexter’s Mind

The person at Miami Metro who has the most need of defense mechanisms is Dexter himself. He certainly has more unbridled complexity for his unconscious mind to rein in than most people; his entire life is based on his ability to convince himself that his actions are just, righteous, and morally acceptable. To achieve this feat, Dexter uses all of the protective methods described above, as well as additional ones we haven’t yet discussed.

One mechanism used by Dexter that we don’t see in any other character is repression. Freud believed that when we witness something so traumatic that it will break us, our memories are pushed so far into our unconscious mind that we don’t even realize they exist. Instead, we simply have a blank spot in our personal biographies.

When Dexter was three, he and his brother witnessed their mother being murdered, saw her chopped into pieces with a chainsaw, and then were left in a freighter cargo box with no food, sitting in two inches of blood, for several days. This incident was so traumatic that Dexter blocked it from his memory for years. Unfortunately for him, his older brother Brian did not use repression, and became obsessed with helping Dexter recover this memory. Dexter didn’t even know that he had a brother until Brian brought the memories back by re-creating them; when the memories surfaced, they brought back all the original anxiety associated with the event. Although the repression helped Dexter temporarily, it eventually backfired on him and put everyone in his life at risk.

Sublimation was used by the Trinity killer to make his socially unacceptable tendencies praiseworthy, but the king of this mechanism is Dexter himself. Dexter simply loves blood. Blood is beautiful to him, fascinating, poetic. His obsession with blood clearly stems from his childhood trauma, but Dexter knows that his fondness for blood is not socially acceptable. This is clear in every interaction he has within Miami Metro’s police station, but was even more explicitly taught to him in the Code of Harry. So what can Dexter do? His unconscious solved this problem for him by steering him toward a career where he could sit in blood all day: a blood spatter expert for the police. He can know everything about blood and get paid for it: a perfect sublimation.

Like Lundy, who used intellectualization to stay objective in his search for serial killers in the FBI, Dexter often intellectualizes his own life, telling himself that he feels no emotions. Although we know this is not true (Dexter certainly feels anger toward people who threaten his family, and remorse when he makes mistakes), Dex has been taught to intellectualize his tendencies by his father (and note that Dexter’s clinging to the “Code” with almost biblical devotion is also an example of identification). Harry encouraged Dexter to think about the evidence first before killing someone, and to avoid personal grudges or feelings of anger. While Dexter occasionally breaks this bylaw of the code, he realizes that letting emotions guide his choices is a slippery slope to avoid.

In “Truth Be Told” (1-11), Dexter thought about his newly recovered memories from childhood: “I’ve never had much use for the concept of Hell, but if Hell exists, I’m in it. The same images running through my head, over and over. I was there. I saw my mother’s death. A buried memory, forgotten all these years. It climbed inside me that day, and it’s been with me ever since. My Dark Passenger.” Later in that same episode he consciously realized that he’d been using intellectualization: “No wonder I felt so disconnected my entire life. If I did have emotions, I’d have to feel . . . this.” Although Dexter uses many defense mechanisms, he does occasionally have particularly good insight into his own psyche.

While all of the defense mechanisms described above are important to understanding how Dexter’s psyche works, his most essential unconscious motivation is rationalization. Rationalization is used when we do something we know is wrong, but we come up with an excuse to justify it. For example, we may “fudge” a bit on our tax returns because we feel the government takes too much of our money. We might not pick up our dog’s poop on the sidewalk if we tell ourselves our dog is small and thus the poop doesn’t matter. Or we might kill dozens of people and tell ourselves that it’s okay, as long as it follows the code.

Dexter is so caught up in rationalization that in “The Dark Defender” (2-5), he envisions himself as a superhero. This is where society grants killers permission: superheroes are defending the world against evil, fighting for truth and justice, saving innocent victims. These are all the lessons Dex wants to believe are true about himself, based on the Code of Harry. He’s like Batman: a dark figure, waiting in the shadows, who will avenge wrongs done to society by paying back the bad guys. He’s saving future victims—so what he’s doing is okay. Isn’t it?

Dex started on the path of rationalization because of Harry’s teachings. In “Popping Cherry” (1-3), we witnessed Dexter’s “first time” (his first murder, not first sexual encounter). Harry had already taught him the code, including the telling lesson, “Killing will serve a purpose—otherwise it’s just plain murder.” Harry instructed Dexter to kill a nurse at the hospital who was giving him shots of poison along with his pain killers. Dexter seized on this chance to kill someone without feeling guilty: “The nurse was my first playmate. I’ll always be grateful to her for opening up so many magnificent new doors for me.” In that same episode, Dexter observed a young killer named Jeremy. Jeremy was convicted of killing someone four years ago, but Dexter granted him a pardon: “Jeremy didn’t murder that boy four years ago. He was taking out the garbage—just like I do.”

Dexter is accustomed to his own rationalization, but he knows that most people in his life wouldn’t agree with the choices his unconscious has helped him to make. In “An Inconvenient Lie” (2-3), Dexter stood in the morgue surrounded by his Bay Harbor Butcher victims, while Lundy spoke to him about the case. Dexter tried to appear normal, saying what he thought Lundy would expect; he told Lundy that there’s never any excuse for killing. To his surprise, Agent Lundy contradicted him, noting that the one good reason—the one justified reason—is to save an innocent life. This simple statement is the keystone to Dexter’s entire world, the foundation of his entire system of justification. He honestly believes that by killing killers he’s saving their future victims, and therefore his mission is a noble and fair one. And if Agent Lundy, a stand-up and moral man, also believed this, then Dexter himself becomes less culpable in his own mind. When Dexter was keeping Doakes prisoner in season two, they had several debates about whether Dexter’s actions were justified, and Dexter continually used rationalization to defend himself. Doakes asked Dexter why it’s okay for Dexter to kill other murderers, and how Dexter could think that it’s more “moral” than when Doakes is forced to shoot criminals on the job. Dexter argued that Doakes shoots people for a paycheck, whereas Dexter is doing it because it’s the right thing to do. Doakes then tried to tell Dexter that a police officer killing on the job is just upholding laws like self-defense, but Dexter argued that the code is actually better because it requires a “higher standard of proof” than the law. Dexter even told Doakes that his code and brand of justice don’t cost the city anything in taxes, so Dexter is a bargain! Clearly Dexter has thought out every excuse for his behavior, and he can twist any argument thrown at him.

Dexter’srationalization is a living thing, which can morph and expand as needed. In “Left Turn Ahead” (2-11), he told himself, “I’m sparing Rita and Deb by framing Doakes . . . Right?” In “Easy as Pie” (3-7), he convinced himself to kill an innocent person for the first time: his friend Camilla, who was dying of painful lung cancer. She’d asked him to do it, to help her die in the hospital. At first Dexter refused because killing an innocent is against the code, but it didn’t take long for him to talk himself into it, using rationalization: “I’m doing a good thing, right? This . . . this is mercy.”

Dexter’s mental gymnastics keep expanding, so much that they start to run away without him. When he befriended assistant district attorney Miguel Prado, Dexter actually mentally debated whether he should murder a defense attorney at Prado’s request because she was enabling the bad guys, even though she was just doing her job (the conclusion he eventually reached). Unfortunately for Dex, Prado killed her anyway. When Dexter discovered that Prado was running fast and loose with his code and had lied to him several times, Dex realized that the code is important for protection and became newly committed to it. Although Dexter often stretches his ability to rationalize to the breaking point, he inevitably comes back to this defense mechanism as his home base, a safe place for his mind to live without anxiety. He can kill as many people as he wants, as long as his mind can continue to justify his actions.

How Will It End?

Freud believed that most defense mechanisms will eventually backfire, as we’ve seen in several examples above. So he recommended that, in therapy sessions, individuals identify their mechanisms, deal with the anxiety or trauma related to them, and move on in a healthy way. If you’re using denial, you must admit it and deal with it. If you’re using rationalization, you must realize you’re doing so, stop doing it, and consequently stop doing the behavior you knew was wrong all along.

If Dexter took Freud’s advice, what would happen? As mentioned above, he has a uniquely insightful view into his own unconscious mind. Dexter seems aware of most of his defense mechanisms. This was seen most clearly in the two occasions when Dexter contemplated suicide. Dexter’s entire mental world is built around the concept that serial killers deserve to die. So the only logical conclusion would be that Dexter must, inevitably, kill himself.

In “Circle of Friends,” Dexter felt an affinity to Jeremy, the young boy who was just starting to kill others. Jeremy appealed to Dexter because Jeremy was like himself—Jeremy said he was tired of pretending, tired of feeling nothing, tired of living only inside his own head. So Dexter decided to help Jeremy, just like Harry helped him. Dexter decided that Jeremy was just like him, and that Jeremy thus deserved some guidance and a mentor. Unfortunately, Dex’s decision was too late—Jeremy killed himself. But what’s most interesting was Dexter’s first thought when he saw the suicide: “I guess I was wrong. Jeremy did hear my advice. He killed someone who deserved to die.” But remember that Dexter liked Jeremy because he saw him as another version of himself: someone with no human emotions, someone with the need to kill others. The only logical, rational conclusion we can come to is that Dexter knows deep down that he, himself, deserves to die. He should make the same decision as Jeremy.

Dexter questions this path, though. In “There’s Something About Harry” (2-10), Doakes told Dexter that his father had a secret, and Dexter eventually learned that Harry committed suicide. Why did Harry make this decision? Because he taught Dexter to kill but couldn’t handle the reality of the “monster” he created. Harry walked in on Dexter chopping up a pimp, someone Harry had inadvertently pushed Dexter to kill. But Harry was stopped cold by the sight of his adopted son, casually covered in plastic and pimp blood, and he simply couldn’t live with what he had created. After this revelation, Dexter decided that suicide is weak, “pathetic,” because it meant leaving behind those who love you.

It seems that Dexter’s choice to abandon suicide is clear, but that path has not really left his mind. In season four, Dexter became obsessed with catching Trinity. He actually found Trinity about to jump off a building to end everything, and he stopped this from happening. However, Dexter briefly wondered if Trinity was making the right decision: if suicide was the only way to end the cycle of violence and deal with his never-ending remorse. Dexter also wonders if this will eventually be his own decision.

What would Freud think about Dexter and his defense mechanisms? It could be argued that Freud would be proud of how well Dexter and his colleagues exemplify the various mechanisms Freud suggested. Some of them help, and some of them backfire, which Freud also suggested would happen. Freud would most certainly not agree with Dexter’s justification for serial killings. But what about the big decision Dexter must eventually face: how to end everything? As audience members, most of us will recoil at the idea of Dexter ending his successful career as a vigilante. But why do we feel this way? It’s likely that we loyal viewers are actually experiencing defense mechanisms ourselves. We are rooting for him, hoping he doesn’t get caught, reveling in his joy when he chops up a bad guy. We’re on Dexter’s side. We must, therefore, be experiencing denial, identification, or, more likely, rationalization, right along with the characters of the show. We don’t want Dexter to end, either through Dexter getting caught or through him ending his own life. In some ways, we want to be Dexter.

So, what would Freud say? Although suicide is not a socially acceptable choice, many people would be surprised to learn that Freud actually made this choice for himself. After years of living in fear from the Nazis (Freud was a Jew who lived in Austria almost his entire life) and living in pain from cancer of the mouth (all those cigars were needed to help cure his phallic fixations), Freud (with the help of his friend) took three doses of morphine to end it all. So when Dexter considers suicide, Freud would probably tell him that this choice is a noble one. At least, that’s what Freud and Dexter can tell themselves, if their unconscious minds are creative.

Wind Goodfriend is an associate professor of psychology at Buena Vista University. She earned her PhD in social psychology in 2004 from Purdue University. In her final year of graduate school, Dr. Goodfriend received both the “Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award” and the “Outstanding Graduate Student of the Year Award” for her research. Since then, she has been nominated for and won several more research and teaching awards.

Chase Barrick is a student at Buena Vista University. He will graduate from Buena Vista University in 2010 with a bachelor of arts degree in psychology. He hopes to continue his education in the field of psychology as he attends graduate school.